I, Said the Spy

by Derek Lambert

  She had been playing roulette, losing steadily. When she had lost around 1,000 dollars she said to her companion, a svelte young man in a white suit: ‘Take my seat for a few minutes,’ and had headed for the rest room.

  A big man, wearing a blue, light-weight suit as though he resented it, detached himself from one of the slot machines and beckoned to her.

  ‘No offence, ma’am. But would you care to look in your purse and see if your wallet’s still there?’

  She opened the jewelled evening purse. No wallet.

  Before she could speak, he said: ‘The young guy who was standing behind you in the white suit. Why don’t you ask him to give it back? Maybe he was just minding it for you,’ a smile creasing his face.

  ‘Carlos? Don’t be ridiculous. He’s-’

  ‘With you?’ The big man shrugged. ‘Nice looking guy. The last person you’d suspect. But I’m telling you, lady, he’s a thief. Why don’t you ask him? I can tell you this, he isn’t a pro. If he was he’d have passed it on by now and he hasn’t – I’ve been watching him.’

  ‘Are you the house detective?’

  ‘No ma’am. Not even a shamus.’

  She hesitated. ‘I can’t accuse him of robbing me.’

  ‘You could ask him nicely. Maybe I should hang around.’

  Claire returned to the table as the croupier was raking in the chips. Carlos, twenty-five years old, Argentinian, swung himself from the chair and smiled apologetically. ‘I continued your losing streak.’

  Claire said: ‘I lost more than I reckoned on. Someone’s stolen my wallet.’

  The green eyes widened. ‘That’s terrible. Are you sure you haven’t dropped it?’ kneeling and searching the carpet at their feet.

  ‘No, Carlos, I haven’t dropped it. And don’t think I’m going to enjoy what I’m about to say. If I’m wrong please forgive me. If I am wrong then whatever was in that wallet is yours.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did you take the wallet?’

  He took a step backwards. ‘That is a disgusting thing to say,’ and sadly she knew it was true.

  What did she do now, frisk him?

  The stranger intervened. ‘You know something, Carlos, you should have been an actor. Why don’t you get your ass over to Hollywood?’

  Wariness settled on the Argentinian’s features, ‘Who is this man?’

  ‘Don’t bother your pretty little head about who I am,’ Anello said. ‘Give the lady back her wallet.’

  ‘I happen to be this lady’s escort.’

  ‘Do you want the big scene here or outside?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘Language, Carlos.’ Anello gripped the lapels of the white suit; heads turned. ‘Here or outside?’

  ‘Okay, okay. Get your hands off me.’ Anello let go of his lapels; the Argentinian slipped his hand inside his jacket and withdrew the black leather wallet. ‘I was looking after it.’

  ‘Beat it,’ Anello told him.

  ‘But-’

  ‘Do what the man says,’ Claire said, ‘or I’ll call the police.’

  The Argentinian smoothed his crumpled lapels and, reassembling his dignity, strode away.

  Claire opened the wallet. ‘Would you be insulted if I offered you a reward?’

  ‘It takes more than that to insult me. But I wouldn’t take it.’

  Claire tried to assess him. Carlos in a different guise? ‘Well thank you anyway, Mr –’

  ‘Anello. Pete Anello.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Anello.’

  ‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should go home.’ She took a compact from her purse and examined her face. He was right.

  ‘Don’t worry, you look great,’ he said. ‘Just tired.’ He took her arm and they walked towards the exit.

  ‘I don’t need an escort.’

  He ignored her.

  Outside the sky was scattered with stars. She could smell the sea and the message of the waves was loneliness.

  She stopped beside her red Maserati.

  ‘Classy,’ Pete Anello remarked.

  She wished she’d come in the beach buggy.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘thanks again.’ And hesitantly: ‘Maybe you’d like to drop by for a drink tomorrow evening. We’re having a few people round.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and my father.’ She handed him a visiting card embossed with a pair of duelling pistols.

  ‘Lyford Cay.’ He whistled as he read the address. ‘So you’re really loaded.’

  ‘Is that a crime?’

  ‘Depends how you got the load.’

  ‘Well, come along if you’ve nothing better to do.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said, slamming the car door.

  But he wasn’t.

  Nor the next day.

  On the third day he called her. ‘I forgot the address at Lyford Cay.’

  ‘It was on the card.’

  ‘I know. I only found it today in the pocket of that suit.’ A pause. Then he said: ‘I thought maybe we could go for a drink someplace. One of the joints. Blackbeards, Charley Charley’s, Dirty Dick’s. You name it.’

  They went to Charley Charley’s, where they drank beer and ate half-pound hamburgers and listened to Latin beat.

  As they left she said: ‘Tell me truthfully, why did you call me?’

  ‘I always wanted to drive a Maserati,’ he said.

  Then he’d gone missing for a week. ‘Skippered a yacht,’ he said when he returned.

  Later that day, back at the house at Lyford Cay – where the rich and the very rich lived – she asked him: ‘Do you want a job?’

  ‘Depends.’

  They were sitting at the safari bar leading into the pool room. Tiger skins lay on the floor; an ancient fan idled from the ceiling. She was sipping a champagne cocktail, he drank from a can of Budweiser. He wore Levis and a patched blue shirt, looking more at ease in the imitation hunting lodge than he had at the casino.

  ‘You look as if you can take care of yourself,’ she said.

  Anello shrugged.

  ‘And other people,’ she said.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Everyone has a bodyguard these days. Three hundred bucks a week and your keep.’

  ‘More than I get now,’ Anello said.

  ‘Are you accepting?’

  ‘Best offer I’ve had so far.’ He grinned at her and poured beer down his throat from the can.

  ‘Then you can start now.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’ He suddenly leaned across the bar and kissed her and, tremulously, hope expanded.

  ‘Where’s the old man?’ he asked.

  ‘He flew back to New York this morning.’

  ‘To do an arms deal?’

  ‘I do the deals,’ she said.

  ‘How about that,’ unimpressed.

  ‘I wasn’t boasting. It just happens to be a fact.’

  Later that night they made love on the big round bed hung with blue silk drapes, and it was as it had never been before. She thought: ‘At my age, crazy.’

  But it was true. Possessed and possessing. And yet afterwards he was so casual.

  I have to find out, she thought, as she stood bare-breasted in the sun gazing at the sleeping figure beside the swimming pool.

  She went up to him and whispered in his ear: ‘How about earning your living?’ She removed the straw hat and he opened his eyes.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Like we did last night.’

  He blinked sleepily. ‘Did you say earning my living?’

  She nodded and thought: ‘You stupid bitch,’ but she had to know. If he was like all the others he would spring smartly to attention and follow her to the bedroom, and if he wasn’t he would get angry and she would laugh and tell him that she had been joking and it would be beautiful.

  He stood up, yawned, stretched. Then he dived into the pool and ploughed powerfully through the water. She became frightened.

  He hauled himself out
of the pool and dried himself with a towel bearing the duelling pistols motif.

  She put her arms round him and said: ‘Pete, I was only joking,’ but he pushed her away and said: ‘Better put that bathing top on, you might catch cold.’

  He started to walk towards the house.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  He didn’t reply.

  She retrieved the top of her bikini, cupped it round her breasts and ran after him down the avenue of poinsettias leading to the house.

  But he was loping along now, and by the time she reached the steps he had disappeared inside the house.

  When she reached the bedroom he was putting on his Levis and patched blue shirt.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Haven’t decided yet,’ he said, taking a scuffed leather bag from the closet. ‘I hear there’s a millionaire loose in Nassau looking for hands for his yacht.’

  She touched his arm. ‘Stay here, I didn’t mean it. You must know that. I … I was trying to test you.’ Everything she said made it worse.

  ‘And did I pass?’

  ‘With flying colours,’ trying to smile.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Please stay.’

  He reached into the bag, searched around and pulled out a cigar box. He opened it and took out a thick roll of dollar bills. He handed them to her. ‘Payment for services rendered. You’ll find it all there.’

  He picked up the bag and walked down the marble staircase.

  When he opened the heavy oak door a shaft of sunlight lit the entrance hall.

  He saluted and said: ‘Take good care of your wallet, Mrs Jerome.’

  ‘How are you going to get into Nassau?’

  ‘Hitch I guess.’

  ‘I can drive you.’

  ‘What, in that old Maserati? I’m not used to travelling in anything less than a Rolls.’

  And he was gone. And she was left weeping, watched curiously by a black servant hovering in the shaft of sunlight.

  She found him two days later feeding coins into a slot machine in the casino.

  He looked up. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Shoot’

  ‘Can we go somewhere?’

  ‘Here’s fine.’

  ‘I want to say I’m sorry.’

  ‘Accepted.’

  ‘You see,’ she said, as he pulled the handle and the bright coloured symbols whirled in front of them, ‘I just had to know. All my life … ever since my husband died, that is … I’ve been surrounded by phonies. You know, Carlos, that kind of guy ….’

  ‘Poor old Carlos,’ Anello said, feeding another quarter into the machine. ‘He was an amateur.’

  ‘Let me finish. You were the first … you know, I just couldn’t believe it, and because I couldn’t believe I would ever fall that lucky I just had to find out. A sort of death wish, I guess ….’ She ran out of words. ‘Will you come back, Pete?’

  Anello stared at the last quarter in his hand. ‘Let’s ask the machine.’

  He pushed the quarter into the slot, pulled the handle. The symbols spun, blurred into streaks of colour, began to slow down.

  Please God.

  The symbols stopped with a jerk.

  Coins showered onto the carpet.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, shovelling them into his pockets, ‘let’s go. Where’s the Maserati?’

  ‘I brought the beach buggy,’ she said.

  They didn’t make love that night. For a long time they held each other very close in the big round bed, and for the first time Claire Jerome sensed that perhaps the man in her arms wasn’t as self-sufficient as he made out.

  Once he dozed and woke up screaming. About guns and fire and a man who wanted to plant trees …. And when she woke him to break the dream she was aware that her feelings towards him had changed. Found a new dimension. It was strange: hearing him cry out, she wanted to protect him.

  Why, she wondered, did so many men want to appear invulnerable? It was a weakness in a way. She was glad Anello had a weakness; she was glad she no longer looked only for strength.

  She switched on the bedside-lamp. Her eyes re-focussed in the light and he said: ‘Did I call out?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That dream,’ he said. ‘Always that dream.’

  And somehow she knew that it wasn’t just a dream and knew that she shouldn’t ask him about it.

  He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. ‘We don’t know a damn thing about each other,’ he said. ‘It’s about time ….’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘You first.’

  * * *

  Claire Marks was born in New York in the early ’30s when the United States was still shuddering from the ’29 crash.

  Her father, Nathan, reacted to the recession with delight. It had always been his philosophy that adversity was the breeding ground of success – perhaps because, being a hunch-back, he had always viewed the world from a disadvantageous angle.

  When he lived in Germany not even the mounting anti-Semitism there had failed to curb his incorrigible optimism. ‘Time to get out,’ he had announced cheerfully. ‘Harness failure. Use your enemies, use the bastards.’

  He had closed down his small-arms factory in Berlin and booked a passage for himself and his pregnant wife on a cargo boat bound for New York. His wife didn’t protest – he never listened – merely lay on a bunk on the heaving ship, hands clasped across her taut belly, gazing with adoration at her diminutive husband as he bustled in and out of the cabin planning deals on the other side of the Atlantic. ‘A bear market,’ he would gloat. ‘What could be better?’

  But Nathan Marks’ small-arms were very small indeed. A few hundred finely-tooled pistols a year. The duelling pistol motif made no impact on the American market.

  Claire was born in conditions of adroitly concealed poverty in an apartment belonging to another Berlin Jew in the Garment Centre between Broadway and Ninth Avenue.

  Nathan, who had openly coveted a son, was unperturbed as he gazed at the baby born with a shock of black hair and her mother’s lustrous eyes. ‘A girl. Wonderful! An heiress to a fortune,’ a statement which confused his most devoted admirers.

  By the time his daughter was four, Nathan Marks was still optimistic about his decline in fortune. (He was by now helping to manufacture print frocks and investing his meagre profits in a warehouse in Jersey City.) ‘Soon there will be war and then we shall be made. You see. The Germans are playing into our hands. We’ll use them yet.’

  But Claire’s mother hadn’t the will to wait for this phenomenon. She died in 1938, placidly content at the short journey on which Nathan had taken her, confident that he would care for their daughter.

  Two months after her death Nathan was visited by two middle-aged men wearing grey suits, white shirts and striped ties.

  They said vaguely that they represented the United States Government and Nathan nodded impatiently as if to say: ‘What kept you so long?’

  ‘We’ve got a proposition to put to you, Mr Marks.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the hunch on his back a symbol of his impatience.

  ‘But we’d like to ask a few questions first.’

  Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, thought Nathan Marks, offering lemon-tea and sugar-crusted cakes in the fusty little apartment as though he were president of Krupps. ‘Sure, sure, go ahead.’

  ‘Who are the firms leading German re-armament at the present time?’

  ‘At the present time Grossfuss at Döbeln; Walther at Zella-Mehlis; Erma-Werke at Efurt —’

  Tweedle-dum held up a hand. ‘Fine, Mr Marks. That’s just fine.’

  ‘And your political affiliations?’ Tweedle-dee asked.

  ‘I’m a Jew, isn’t that enough?’

  They asked more questions which Nathan answered without hesitation. Yes, he thought the persecution of the Jews was the most terrible crime Mankind had ever perpetrated: the Germans were vomit. War was inevitable, but he understood the isolation
ist movement in the States even though it was doomed to disillusion.

  ‘What are your priorities, Mr Marks?’

  Promptly: ‘Myself and my daughter in reverse order.’ The older of the two men, grey-eyed and sharp-featured, said: ‘We are interested in your views on isolation. The extreme isolationists tend to be pro-German and anti-British. How would you like to join their ranks?’

  Nathan bit into a sugared cake. ‘Explain yourselves, gentlemen.’

  The younger of the two, who had a soft voice and a scarred face, told Nathan that Roosevelt believed that the only way to stem German expansionism was to buttress Europe. And at the same time undermine the Nazi war effort. ‘That’s where you come in,’ the younger man said.

  The older one carried on: ‘We want you to prepare a complete treatise on German arms manufacture. In particular its most vulnerable aspects. In return you will find your business account-such as it is,’ smiling, ‘credited with 500,000 dollars. We wish you to expand your warehouse in Jersey City – and go back into your old business.’

  By the end of 1940, when Great Britain was the only country in Europe left to be ‘buttressed’, three German arms factories in Essen, Dortmund and Berlin had mysteriously been sabotaged and Marks International was in full, lethal production. Nathan Marks was using the enemy.

  He took his daughter, maid and nanny, to a penthouse on the East Side, where he joined the anti-British faction of Manhattan society and attended a dinner thrown at the Waldorf Astoria to celebrate the German victories in Europe. Future trade between America and the New German Empire – after Britain had been vanquished – was among the topics discussed.

  Dutifully the little hunchback reported back to Anglo-American Intelligence headquarters at the Rockefeller Centre where, in Room 3553 at 630 Fifth Avenue, he talked with the British director, William Stephenson, and J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI.

  Nathan agreed to supply arms to Nazi sympathisers in Mexico and South America – Brazil in particular – through a front company with a Gentile board of directors to avoid upsetting the Aryan sensibilities of the purchasers.

  Thus the Nazis, assembling beneath the belly of the United States, became the proud possessors of great arsenals of weapons and ammunition – most of it dud and much of it booby-trapped. The good stuff was distributed among the American armed forces or dispatched across the U-boat infested Atlantic to Britain.